Your foolish, but entirely rational,

Rosalie

23 May 1938

Dear Mama,

We’ve been here two weeks and it seems a lifetime.

Who could ever have imagined? The Pesach tales of oppression, which I once dismissed as part myth, part ancient history, and wholly unrelated to our enlightened age, have risen from the pages of the Haggadah to come howling after us. Once again we’re fleeing, scattering to the winds. Over the thin kasha soup and rough bread that serves as dinner at the Home, one hears of relatives making for Australia, Argentina, the Dominican Republic-oh, Mama, I don’t believe I could find that island on a map, and yet it’s rumored that, alone in the world but for Shanghai, its doors remain open.

And reverently people speak of the Promised Land, America. America? Which issues only a miserably few visas to refugees, desperate as we are? Why does anyone believe America will be more hospitable once they pry open its doors? And yet so many plan and scheme and hope: A former employer who fled to Chicago will send for them, or cousins in New York will sponsor them, and the gates of paradise will swing wide.

No, I say. Shanghai is mystifying and often harsh; nevertheless, it’s welcomed us. Until insanity is overthrown and our homes restored, my home is here.

Oh, what a demagogue I’ve become! I’m sorry; worry over you and Uncle Horst, over the future, over how to know I’m doing the right things for Paul-over whether I’ll find kasha soup in my bowl again tomorrow-combines with a helpless anger, and leads to a darkness I haven’t known before.

Others feel this darkness, too, the result of worry and the inability to find work, a place to live, decent food-to take any action in any direction. At the Home you see people-a small number, but real-who sit all day in the canteen or on their cots, who have little to say and will not try the streets of Shanghai, who no longer spend effort to stay clean and groomed-and it is an effort here, Mama, but one I force myself to make and demand of Paul. This darkness thickens imperceptibly: I didn’t realize I had fallen into its shadow until our outing with Kai-rong. For the brief period of that afternoon, Shanghai seemed not like a frightening dream, but merely a place. Bizarre and mystifying, admittedly, but nevertheless a solid, daytime place whose streets and customs could, with application, be understood.

I’m telling you this, Mama, because I want you to understand a decision I’ve made: after wrenching consideration, I’ve determined to sell Grandmother Gilder’s ruby ring. I’m afraid to stay too long at the Home, afraid of what the dreariness will do to my heart and Paul’s. The price of the ring should enable us to pay what’s called “key money”-pure extortion, but every landlord demands it-and also, I hope, to pay Paul’s school fees when I find him a place. He claims to be perfectly happy in his truancy, and asks that I not sell anything for his sake; but I don’t believe him. He hasn’t seen the inside of an incomprehensible science text since we left the ship, so how could he be happy? And even if he were, nevertheless he should be in school.

Accordingly, tomorrow I’ll set off into the French Concession-a beautiful area, with villas on tree-lined streets, as opposite to Hongkew as you can imagine; Kai-rong took us through it. The finest shops are there, and Kai-rong has given me the names of jewelers of good reputation. I’ll search one out, and return to Hongkew richer, though, I think, much poorer also.

I’ve chosen the ring because it’s mine. Yes, I remember my vow to renounce sentimentality; but to regard your jewelry, Mama, as mineral banknotes isn’t easy without you here to tell me to do it! Until you come, I have nothing but your photograph and my memories. These include watching you dress for elegant evenings, and the magical moment when you fixed the diamond necklace at your throat and became Queen Mama, and I became Princess Rosalie. That necklace especially, but also the gold bracelet, and the others-yes, yes, I will sell them if I must, I won’t let Paul starve! But if there’s a way, I would dearly love to see you, when you are here in Shanghai, as Queen Mama once more!

I hope you approve of my decision, Mama; and if you don’t, I can’t wait to hear you tell me so yourself.

Your Rosalie

The alarm on my cell phone beeped. Ten minutes? That’s all? I felt like I’d been in Shanghai, walking beside Rosalie, for weeks.

When I called, Mary picked up right away. “You owe me, girlfriend. And you owe Captain Mentzinger, too.”

“Was he mad?”

“You mean how much do you owe? Actually, it was another chance to stick it to Midtown. Remind them they owe us. Still-”

“Okay, I just entered it in my karma ledger.”

She gave me the details, and I called Leah Pilarsky. “Midtown Homicide is contacting the medical examiner. You should be able to pick up Joel’s body by the end of the day.” She was right, it did feel weird to say “Joel’s body.”

“Oh, Lydia, thank you! This will mean so much to Ruth! If there’s ever anything I can do for you-”

“Just let me know when the funeral is. I’d like to be there.”

“Of course! We can plan now for tomorrow. I’ll call you. Now I’d better go. So many people have been calling, people who need to travel in-cousins from Seattle, his old partner in Florida, his college roommate in Zurich. I have to let them all-”

“Leah? Who’s in Zurich?”

“Joel’s college roommate.”

“The roommate’s in Zurich?”

“He’s lived there for years. David Rosenberg. He publishes a business magazine.”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“Yes, of course. But the police already talked to him.”

“I’m sure.” Three calls, Joel made the morning he died. Alice, me, and first, his college roommate. Mulgrew had said that. He hadn’t said the roommate was in Zurich.

I called the number Leah gave me, but David Rosenberg, as it turned out, had already left for New York.

“He wanted to be with Ruth,” Rosenberg’s wife explained, in accented English. “His plane will land eight at the morning. No, no, that is my time. In New York it will be night.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

I called Leah. “If you hear from him, will you ask him to call me?”

“Yes. And if not, the funeral’s tomorrow at ten.” She gave me the details.

“I’ll be there. But that’s not a nice thing, to bother Mr. Rosenberg at the funeral.”

“You’ll come back to the house afterward. You can talk then.”

All right. Joel’s friend in Zurich; that sounded like movement. Feeling a little less stuck, I went back to Rosalie.

24 May 1938

Dearest Mama,

I admit to an odd feeling of satisfaction today. I set off to sell Grandmother Gilder’s ring, and returned unsuccessful. But the very reason for my failure is the main source of my gratification.

This afternoon I approached three of Shanghai’s finest jewelers. Each made an offer, but I did not like their prices. They were low, Mama, they were the offers of men taking advantage of a young woman in need. And so, thanking each, I turned on my heel. With every abandoned transaction I found, to my surprise, a growing sense that life here might not be beyond my control after all.

Do you understand that, Mama? Until today disorientation and uncertainty have made me progressively more passive, deflated, and defeated, in ways I’ve not always recognized. But dealing, in German and English, with these arrogant men, and scorning their offers (politely, always politely!) began to restore me to myself.

Which sense was then magnified by the adventure that ended my day! As I left the third jeweler’s shop, the sky darkened and a torrential downpour swept in-that happens often here, as though the very air, impatient of the thick dampness, is trying to throw it into the gutters. Waiting beneath a colonnade for the sky to lighten, I noticed a foreign-language bookstore. What choice had I but to enter? I discovered shelves of volumes in English and German, as well as French, Spanish, Polish, and Russian. There was no question of a purchase-where would I keep anything, I whose home is a cot behind a bedsheet? and with what would I buy it, I who am selling a treasure?-but it cheered me to be in the presence of so many books. I was searching for the works of P. G. Wodehouse when voices erupted. A Chinese in military uniform was upbraiding the clerk in English. The clerk’s helpless “Bitte?” made it clear he didn’t speak the language, but the officer seemed to take his befuddlement as a deliberate affront. The officer’s rudeness was unfortunate, for his broad shoulders and erect bearing cut a handsome figure.